Christmas, Romance and Underwear Shopping

29Dec

It’s Christmas week and as a closet sap buff I always think you should spend time with people you love on Christmas. Unfortunately, my family is boring at Christmas and my friends are not in my immediate vicinity and I don’t want to step out of the house any more than absolutely necessary. I know its easy to assume that as a Christian household we would have something to do on Christmas but as a household that is at least fifty percent atheist and ninety percent dull, Christmas is like any other day except colder, and with better food. Usually one extra person is around (this year it was my sister’s friend) because of whom we wear presentable clothes; which in my case involves an actual bra and pants to hide my unkept winter legs. The church thing is on Christmas eve which I didn’t go to this time. I like the singing but I really wanted to stay home, watch Grey’s Anatomy and not wear a bra.

I officially took leave last week giving Christmas as the excuse and yet here I am, refusing to let myself quit. I am rather proud of myself in this regard. I seem to be at a likely short-lived phase where I seem to be doing the things that are good for me without someone telling me to. I jog even though I don’t have to, I write though I don’t have to, instead of leaving a really boring book and reading a Terry Pratchett I soldier on even though I’ve been reading it very slowly, I don’t talk to people who would piss me, and I’m spending more time actively planning for life as a non-bum. As a small token of appreciation, I am letting myself have a ramble blog post. Hopefully, the things I ramble with will come together in the end. And if it fails, I will still have written when I needn’t have, you dear reader, would have wasted the time you wanted to waste, and I would write an extra paragraph which would purposefully tie things together like the last monologue in a documentary with multiple threads.

Around Christmas, I always watch a lot of television. You may wish to look at this as the sad state of family affiliation in these trying modern times, but I see it as the ability of the modern world to provide solace and companionship to people. As I mentioned, we’re not the kind of family suited for holidays. We spend the day at home, but we’re not in the same room for most of it. And you would think that I would have no affiliation towards Christmas what with this and the atheism, but you would be wrong. I don’t talk about it or make a big deal, but I actually love Christmas. It means that I eat food, stay in bed with hot water bottles and watch Christmas Special’s on TV. I like how on TV, Christmas is a bigger deal to The Office, to Jon and Stephen, to Community, to Parks and Rec, Friends, Scrubs, than it is to me. There are no presents because we don’t do that either in our family, but there’s cake in the house and I wear red clothes and I feel toasty. It may seem sad, but I like it. Living vicariously through television is better than actually having to spend a whole day listening to my dad talk about nothing, my mom and sister fighting about something inane, and the maid being a singing idiot from you know where.

I drew my friends’ faces, and now I hate them. Whenever I draw a face, unless it’s a particularly beautiful/ distinctly angular one, I continually curse the person I’m drawing. “What the fuck is wrong with your smile?” “Why are you so white, bitch?” “Why is your hair like that?” “I will pull out your teeth so you never show them again” “Do you have eyelashes?” “Motherfucking whores want smiling pictures, I will kill them”. I will really miss college. And I will never again speak of it in this blog till the end of this coming semester.

I went underwear shopping the other day. This is one of the worst parts about being a girl as far as I’m concerned. I know its easy if you want to spend money, but as you can guess from my last post, I very rarely like spending money on essentials unless it’s a really good dress or really good food. Further, ever since S told me to stop thrusting my chest out when I honestly wasn’t I have nothing but confidence in my ability to get by without underwire or padding or demi cups or any of the other contraptions. All of which makes underwear shopping in a rich-ass mall a hellish experience.

You walk in and the first thing you notice is that M was right and by the time I start earning I would have to be spending four hundred bucks on a bra which is just wrong. Next, with a cursory glance at the Jockey section, you note that people don’t seem to believe in basic black bras made of simple material without underwires or overwires or corsets or crinolines or whatever else they have decided to bring back. You also note that your size seems to be missing from the rack, pun intended. You wait five minutes for one of the assistants to be free, seething because you hate asking for help in shops. When they are free, you ask them about your size. They give your twins a fleeting glance and mention a bigger size. No. You know your size. You know what’s comfortable.

You mention your size again. They bring you underwired, satiny pieces of material for you to pretend to glance at for the sake of politeness. Then you explain – “I want a basic bra. No lace. No padding, Seamless. No underwire.” They bring you an underwireless but still satiny, lacy one. They don’t seem to understand that when it comes to bras, you’re not looking for Messrs Right Now who will make you feel sexy for a while but eventually you’ll have to let go of. You’re looking for Messrs Right who will be there, supporting you through thick and thin, rain or shine while you live your life, knowing that there will never be a tear, never an unwanted protrusion, for years to come. You want the lifelong gay best friend when it comes to bras. I have been rocking my current bras for the last two to three years and I would like some to keep them company.

Then comes trying them out, which is a new level of hades in Delhi winters. Take off jacket, take off sweater, take off t-shirt. Take off bra, put on shop bra. Holy god, this one is too… much. Put on the next one – too much side boob. Put on the next one – Good, but you need it in your fucking size. Take it off, put on your bra, T-Shirt, sweater, jacket. Adjust your hair. Come out and specify your size again. Repeat till satisfied with results. And sports bras are no better with their hidden hooks and their side boob and their general lack of appeal.

Which is another reason I like the winter holidays. I get to stay home without a bra and its never noticeable what with the layers of sweaters and jackets and quilts and what not.

I re-watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I cried and I’m not even PMS-ing. They’re the most romantic yet realistic love stories, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving them. A DVD set of the two would definitely make my list of movies to take to the desert island. I couldn’t possibly decide with books. I’d just take the Kindle. If they have a DVD player there, they would definitely have a charger. But I found out Before Midnight is releasing in 2013. I am apprehensive yet exuberant. I’m also in love with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

I have been reading Raiders from the North for the past week and a half and I just finished it. If I never have to hear or read about another stupid battle or military strategy, it will be too soon. I will be reading something funny now. Either George Carlin or Terry Pratchett.

Happy New Year mofos. I don’t make resolutions.

– Billy

P.S. – I may write something next week about the protests, largely because I find it’s the best way for me to understand what I’m thinking.